Marie passes on suddenly!

 My son's kitten, Marie, suddenly became ill with diarrhea toward the end of October, then wouldn't eat and died a couple of days later.  Marie was into her 8th month.  The vet must not have known what to do and so suggested she get 2 weeks rest but this turned out to be a death sentence.  I sent my son the contact information for another vet that would have examined Marie before she came over to Canada but this was information that arrived too late to be of any help.

My son's guardian bought my son Wahid another kitten, a male Persian with a tabby coat.  I strong ly suggested Wahid take Millo to the vet I had suggested because that vet has a hospital setting and can do a lot another vet cannot do.  Millo comes here to be with me next month.  He is 6 months old now, perhaps 7 months.  I will check on the age in the records.  My son comes over in 2 years after he finishes college,  I'm looking forward to that!

Otherwise, happy new year and all the best for 2014!

- Volker

Relationships

In the autumn 2010 I learned that Brad was not coming west after being mislead for some time.  A friend of mine in Pennsylvania had some choice words to say but if I were to condense it down to the basics, the word she used was coward!  He's also got himself into a little bit of a problem but I'll leave it at that.  Live, learn and move on.

Now since June of last year I have an adopted son (Wahid) who is currently studying at a college in Indonesia.  When he is finished college (it transitions between high school and university), my son will come here to live with me.  Because he did so well in his exams in December 2012, I allowed him to purchase a Persian flatnose cat.  She was 16 months old when she came home but early in the new year (2013) she was taken to a vet with the guardian thinking she was sick.  Well, it turned out she was pregnant and had 4 kittens in March.  Unfortunately, 2 of them died but the remaining 2 survived and my son asked me to choose names for them.  I chose Emilie and Marie.  When both of them were two months old, there was a break in at the home and Emilie went missing.  She did not return home again.

Marie remains and is now in her 6th month.  She will be joining me here in Canada in December.  I had originally chosen January but my son asked me to move the date up.  Now I'm cat-proofing the place until to have it ready for her arrival.  The photo above is a recent image of her.  She has the typical Persian features of the long hair and short legs.  The white comes from the father (who we do not know) since the mother was chocolate in colour.  Marie has a small patch of dark hair between her ears, otherwise she's white!

My son was 15 years old when I got to know him after his parents had died in a car accident some six months before.  Now he's 17 and growing fast.  We've exchanged a lot of photos since June of last year. 

I also have an Avocado tree which I started from a pit a couple of months ago.  I will post a few photos of that the next time.

So those are the main events of note so far.  Hope all is well!

- Volker

adopted

Since my last post something happened to change my life forever.  I have adopted a 16 year old boy from Indonesia who had lost his parents and older brother in a car accident in the mountains while on vacation.  All the occupants of the vehicle died when it ended up crashing into a mountain ravine.  One moment your world is fine and then the next its all upside down.  So after the accident, Wahid was looking for someone that would fill the roll as his father.  He found me through a friend on Facebook, so the social media online do serve some useful purposes!

Wahid chats with me daily, as often as 3 or 4 times each day.  A bond his formed and one that is likely to stay for the rest of my lifetime.  I did offer to adopt him legally as my son but I have left that option open not wanting to apply too much pressure considering what he has already been through.  Wahid does want to finished his college education and then come live with me in Canada.  In the meantime, the FB chats and exchanges of emails will have to do.  Those of you that know me on Facebook will know much more about this. 

So,  what have you been doing this summer? 

Meantime, for those living in Canada and the United States, enjoy the long weekend, Labour Day!  I plan to take a hike in West Vancouver tomorrow on trails on the lower part of Hollyburn Mountain, so more photos are coming.  Enjoy what remains of summer, and the long weekend!

- Volker

Tag Me by Andrew Christian

This looks like an interesting form of art, body painting!  Its certainly very colourful.  Perhaps you would agree!
- Volker

Update

Various things have kept me busy over the past week.  I have finally taken care of most of the backlog of emails since my new notebook is working fine and I have been able to access my email accounts.  I also changed a lot of passwords on various accounts but one of those changes involved Blogger and I had forgotten to record the change that applied to it.  That issue has been corrected and now things are more or less back to normal.

In other news, the last day of spring saw mostly clear skies and sun but that changed again yesterday when the clouds rolled back in.  Temperatures are warmer than they have been but I think its going to be one of those years with less than the usual weather.  Such is life!

Have an awesome weekend, guys!
- V

been offline

My old laptop died toward the end of April, so Ive been offline until recently while getting things organized using a new notebook.  That has meant going through over a thousand emails in one account alone.  There are some in others but not anywhere as many.

The new machine has a dual language keyboard (English-French), so I am getting used to that.

Have a great Sunday and Fathers Day!

- Volker

24 hours

I've been offline for just over a week.  There was a power surge in the building where I live, and certainly in my apartment, so this resulted in the apartment lights flickering, the TV set going wonky, a pop in the laptop and the smoke dector sounding briefly.  This all resulted in the battery pack popping (that sound) and the fan being effected plus there may be other componants that have been effected.  Anyways, I do have a replacement laptop on order (same brand and model, just newer).  I am picking up a parcel from the local post office outlet near home whichm hopefully contains both the laptop and the router ordered.  If not, I'll be online once everything is back to normal.  There is a lot of work to be done retrieving files from the old hard drive, so this should keep me busy for some time after I get the new laptop computer.  

Have a look at the video above, and if you haven't seen it (the movie), check it out.   Have an awesome weekend, guys!

~ Volker